My first three months at Ochre have been lots of fun. I have met lots of friendly, creative people and every day at the studio I have learnt a new process or technique.
When I first started at Ochre I started to make mono-types. I really like this technique as it is similar to painting in many ways but offers some unique opportunities for mark making in the way you can both add and subtract your medium before creating the final result. Also, mysterious things seem to happen when layering oil based ink wet on wet.
The same techniques I find are useful for inking up any kind of intaglio or relief printing plate.
The first courses I took were Jule Mallet and Adam Green’s screen printing courses. Jule focussed more on preparing and exposing screens with photo emulsion and Adam’s course was about stencilling and mono-typing. Both were extremely informative and have given me a good grasp of the basics of screen printing.
In Mai Osawa’s introductory etching course I learnt how to create a hard ground etching on a copper plate and how to add tone using aquatint and stop out varnish. Another of Mai’s courses on the coffee/sugar lift technique has opened my eyes to further possibilities in the intaglio methods and I very much look forward to exploring these further in the future.
I have recently began to experiment with carborundum powder with some pleasing results. It creates grainy effects which remind me of old films.
I would like to say a big thank you to everyone at Ochre for making me feel so welcome and teaching me so much.
